My isekai trash heart sores! Yet another of my favored manga has reached anime status. Death March to the Parallel World Rhapsody has finally had its first episode streamed on Crunchyroll and along with it comes a promise that I will be able to get a weekly isekai fix for the next three months of the winter anime season. Death March is about Suzuki, an overworked programmer who goes to sleep after pulling a thirty-hour shift at work and wakes up in a real world mash up of War Worlds and Freedom Fantasy Life, two games he’d been recently working on.

Obviously, I’m very excited about the newest anime series to magically and randomly transport its main character from modern Japan to a magical fantasy world, but what do I think about the first episode?

Slow Start

Unfortunately, Death March has a very slow start. It reminds of the first few episodes of SAO II where I’m just waiting for everything to start. Or for something interesting to happen already. I’m aware that a certain amount set up is needed, but we’re show an unnecessary train commute, Suzuki going out to lunch, and his encounter with a lost child all before anything actually happens. It feels like a waste of time, and we could have gotten to the action a lot faster. Basically, they spent about one-third of the episode on something that probably could’ve been done in three minutes. So, if you don’t care about Suzuki’s trials as a head programmer, you can skip about 8 or so minutes of the first episode.

How about our MC?

The main character is kind of generic. He’s an overworked Japanese man reincarnated into his old 15-year-old body. Suzuki gets annoyed when taken advantage of but doesn’t do much about it type thing. So, he’s basically basic. But as stated in my In Another World With my Smartphone review, I am all for isekai breaking out the clichés if they’re well-executed and amuse me. And whatever you feel about this MC, there is one thing about him that is perfect. His “sleep is justice” mantra. Sleep is Justice! It’s a sentiment that I 100% agree with. Other than that, there’s not too much to judge him on in the first episode. But he’s interesting enough in the manga, and the cast that surrounds him is really funny, so I’m sure it’ll work well enough in the anime.

Anime Opening and Ending

I really loved both the opening and ending theme. The opening is pretty cool graphics wise and has a super catchy song. On the other hand, the closing isn’t all that catchy, but it is super duper cute. Both the art and the music is just really cute, and I love cute.

Instant OP

So, in the new world, Suzuki renamed as Satou gets an immediate rise from level 1 to level 310, and this is obviously very helpful. After all, it saves him from instant death via lizard monsters and from his own magic. And at the end of the episode, his newfound speed helps him save the first female destined for his future harem. On the other hand, if this actually happened in a game, it’d instantly erase all the fun out of it. “But it’s too hard for beginners” his former clients say, but they really don’t understand their target audience. No matter how bad I am at video game, if there’s something that takes all the challenge out of the game in one fell swoop, I’m not going to want to play that game. Still, just thinking about the logistics of it in combination with how it affects Satou is kind of hilarious to me.

It’s all a dream

This is a bit that always amuses me. Once again, we see the main character trying to convince himself it’s just a dream despite all evidence contrary. He gets injured, feels pain, and is able to access the entire game menu but there’s no save or start button. So, all signs point to him being in a new world, but because he’s had dreams about video games before, of course it’s a dream. Obviously, it’s classic isekai / trapped in a video game stuff, but as I said, it’s this kind of stuff that entertains me. So, I’m all for it.

The isekai world itself is gorgeous

Not much to say here other than that. They put a lot of effort into creating beautiful backgrounds and settings. I’m really happy with that aspect of the show. They created a beautiful animated world so far, and I’m hoping it stays as consistently beautiful as Disboard in No Game No Life.

So, that’s my take on episode one. I had a few issues with it, but overall, I’m very happy. And I’m looking forward to seeing episode two next week.